This disclosure relates to linear drive motors, including synchronous linear drive motors. The disclosure relates to primaries and secondaries for such motors, including stationary and moving primaries, stationary and moving secondaries, and further including secondaries with and without magnets. In one aspect, as will be described in more detail below, a thin sheet of magnetic permeable material is formed with slots extending through the material to form teeth of the secondary and the sheet may also have pockets or recesses formed simultaneously with the motor teeth to eliminate manufacturing or alignment variances. Some of the pockets or recesses may form teeth to be used as part of an encoder scale for the motor and other of the pockets or recesses may be used as part of one or more sensors to provide positioning information for the motor, as well as sensors for the drive components regulating commutation of the motor, i.e., commutation teeth. In another aspect, the pockets used to provide the encoder and commutation functions may be aligned with small magnets installed in the secondary which are seen by the encoder as “home” positions or limits. Yet in another aspect, pockets or recesses are added in the sheet and synchronized with the commutation and encoder teeth to provide “absolute position” on a given platen secondary, thereby enabling the drive for the motor to be flexibly programmed, and the identifying of specific platen secondaries when many are strung together in a line and the providing of “absolute position” for the entire string. Thus, the concepts described herein provide for simultaneous formation (and synchronization) of the motor teeth with the encoder teeth and/or commutation teeth as well as other drive system components. A sheet formed in such a way to form a secondary eliminates the need of conventional “Hall Effect” devices and inherently minimizes problems with establishing or maintaining motor commutation, for instance, motor commutation in sinusoidally commutated linear motors with platens having separate encoder scales that were attached after the teeth in the platen were created. A sheet formed in the way described herein reduces variation, thereby enabling the “electrical angle or commutation angle offset” of a motor to be standardized which in turn reduces set-up and calibration times while providing increased flexibility. Moreover, a drive may electrically couple a primary to a secondary in a string of secondaries and continues with the same commutation pattern between the motor and encoder teeth used in the previous secondary without needing to re-establish phasing in the next secondary. Motion is not slowed down or stopped to perform a “phase search” or read a “Hall Effect” sensor. The primary may also be formed from a solid steel stack and with reduced bearing requirements to work with the secondary to provide advantages in end user applications.